One of the advantages of native plants is that they really don't need any maintenance: no watering (except for newly planted plants), fertilizing, mowing, fungiciding, or insecticiding. You will need to remain alert to invasive species like periwinkle, rosa multiflora, and English ivy, and pull them out at every opportunity, but that would be true no matter what you planted.

The lowest-maintenance course of action for you would be to leave your garden as it is now and sow some native grass & wildflower seed in late fall. It will germinate in spring and take about 2-3 years to grow to a good size. The grasses are important to help keep down the weeds.

A good way to get started on a project like that would be to search wildflower.org and plants.usda.gov for plants native to your area & soil/light conditions (the former site has a database that will give you a list of plants for your state and specified conditions). Then you can buy seed from a place like Prairie Moon Nursery (in my opinion, the best for the Midwest & East).

Here is a link that might be useful: Native Plant Database

Get natives that like forest edges and mulch with woodchips. They are not cheap, except when compared to replacing flowers. Consider their eventual height and put the tallest in back. They will face down the forest and you can plant ground covering natives or bulbs at the very edge. If you can control deer and rabbits, you will have a pleasant view in 3-5 years. I don't like a lawn any bigger than you need, on a day to day basis. I came up with a vast list of potential forest-edge plants.

Don't take out the stumps. Put a potted plant or two on them especially one that trails. Then this winter scatter birdseed on and around them especially if your toddler can see the birds from the inside.

If you use a indoor plant on the stumps you can bring it in this fall to help keep your inside area fresher.

I look at this and see blueberry bushes in my mine's eye with a trail to the woods.

That's so bizarre because I actually have 2 blueberry plants that I just bought and are waiting for planting!

Also, those stumps aren't really stumps. They are apparently ornamental (from previous owner) as they are moveable.

I think the easiest way to maintain a large area is to create a woodland environment. Separate the 'woodland' from the 'yard' perhaps with the wall in the picture, or by some sort of border like logs or simply the edge of the lawn, and don't worry too much about maintaining the woods. I am sure you've seen yards that border the woods, and some of them look perfectly manicured despite the fact that nothing is done to maintain the woods. So, it is partly attitude ('those are the woods, this is the yard') and partly a good border between the two that makes your life easier. I would start by by mulching and planting large clumps of a few types of shrubs or small trees. Pick out perhaps three to five types of native woodland shrubs. Get perhaps three to five plants of each type. Plant each type of plant in an informal clump. The clumps should be arranged to look nice, frame in your yard and woodland path, and to not interfere with each other too much (give them the room they need). In general, put taller ones toward the back, smaller ones in front. Mulch the whole area. You can buy shredded bark or find a local tree trimmer or the municipality who shreds branches (power company crews, road maintenance crews etc.) and sometimes get the chips for free. i would use the most natural-looking mulch you can find, so that the woods look as woodsy as possible. in the future, simply leave the leaves that fall. You should probably mulch again in future years to help build ip the soil and supress weeds. I would probably remove a lot of the small plants that are there now. I see a yellow-green groundcover that is probably a sedum, some weeds, I think, and some grass. none of these really fit in a natural woodland, so I wouldn't keep them. As the shrubs grow, the spaces in between you can plant with wildflowers, ferns, etc. Once you get the shrubs growing and a good mulch on the soil, you can take your time (years, if you want) planting wildflowers, and I think you'll enjoy it.

I would start with several Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida) scattered through the woods. I would plant clumps of Cranberry viburnum (tall, put it near the back), American Holly (Also tall), Maybe Gray Dogwood in the sunnier parts of the front, Blueberries (highbush type- most of the blueberries grown for fruit are 'highbush' blueberries that will get four or five feet tall, at least), and perhaps Red chokeberry, or maybe Inkberry holly, which is evergreen. I would make each clump something like 10 ft by ten feet, but an irregular shape. This will fill a lot of space, you'll like the look of the shrubs, and there will be no maintenance - you can simply let them grow once they are planted and watered for the first few months. I think evergreen groundcovers are a pain - weeds often grow through them, it is hard to get leaves out of them, and unless they grow really thick, the look like a poorly maintained planting. Woods, on the other hand, aren't supposed to be maintained and so look fine full of leaves and sticks. Just maintain a path through them and you are fine.

Yes, your course of action will depend on whether you want the whole thing to be a true woodland, or you want to keep the part in the picture as a kind of "woodland edge" meadow. If true woodland, then I second ladyslppr's recommendation to start with shrubs.

Most of the above advice is pretty good, depending on what you want to do. But DO NOT plant gray dogwood. It is an evil invasive weed here that has tried to take over most of our 5 acres. We are cutting it down all the time, it springs right back. I imagine it was planted by someone who meant well, but it spreads like the dickens by runners and by seed, so unless you want mostly only gray dogwood, don't plant that!

Another piece of advice since you are pregnant and have a small child: ignore the flower garden behind the house. It is behind the house, so who will see it? Plant some new things in that spot if you want, or just ignore it and let nature take its course. The strong will survive and if you get too many weeds, well, you can always smother it with cardboard at some point in the future. Or if you feel generous, offer up "free plants" on freecycle and let people come and dig out what they want from that bed. Then you won't feel bad if it gets covered in leaves and the plants smother.

Marcia

A big help to your knowledge and budget would be to join us over on the Mid-Atlantic gardening forum. Not only can we as a group offer all sorts of advice about local conditions and nurseries (a lot of us are in the greater Washington area), we have a couple of plant swaps every year (also considered chocolate eating opportunities), where you you might pick up a lot of plants suited to a woodland or shade garden in northern Virginia.

Maintaining my woodland garden became a lot easier when I realized that no one rakes the leaves in the woods. I rake leaves off turf/lawn and pathways, but elsewhere I leave it as nature's mulch.

Best of luck

- wd

Well, if I were in your shoes, the first thing I'd do is forget about the weeds and forget about raking. Ever. I'd get rid of the birdbath and similar "ornamental" stuff and let the stumps rot.

Then I'd plant shrubs and maybe a woodland groundcover plant like mayapples. For shrubs, I'd stick to ones that do well in wooded areas and wood edges like lindera benzoin, calycanthus floridus, hamamelis virginiana and symphoricarpus alba. Or maybe oakleaf hydrangea.

Just choose a couple of kinds and forget about going for spectacular, garden-magazine, four-season bloom. Buy little ones that don't break the budget and be patient while they grow.

When the weather turns hot, you will be glad you have a cool, shady area to enjoy.

P.S.: Blueberries are wonderful shrubs - you will be very happy to have these!